1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a microscope image pickup system comprising a microscope apparatus and an image pickup unit such as a digital camera.
2. Description of the Related Art
A microscope image pickup system requires the setup for driving various optical members of a microscope apparatus and image pickup condition of an image pickup unit when picking up an image of an observation body. Such a setup is different for each observer and picking up image and therefore requires a cumbersome adjustment.
In order to improve such a situation, a device has conventionally been conceived to enable an electrical control of a microscope apparatus and of an image pickup unit in a desired state by making it possible to record information related to the states of the microscope apparatus and image pickup unit in a removable recording medium and selecting the information related to a desired state from the recording medium. This makes it possible to record plural kinds of setups in a removable recording medium and therefore, if a certain operator records the information of the microscopic examination state in the recording medium, the state can be reproduced on the basis of the information recorded in the recording medium even if the examination state is changed by another operator.
Related to such a system, a reference patent document 1 (i.e., Laid-Open Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-031757) has proposed a microscope system connecting a remotely operable microscope apparatus with an image processing-capable computer apparatus, thereby enabling various settings output therefrom to be reflected to a setup of the microscope apparatus. The microscope system is configured to make a camera side capable of recognizing a state of the microscope apparatus by an electrical connection, thereby enabling a recording of information such as a state of the microscope apparatus and an image pickup condition of the camera together with the picked-up image. And a later use of the information enables an operator to put the pickup image in order, set the microscope apparatus, and such. This configuration enables an operator to easily, restore the same observation state of the microscope apparatus and image pickup condition of the camera as those at the time of picking up the image just by selecting the image picked up beforehand, and thus making it possible to put the picked-up images in order and set the microscope apparatus, both in good operability.
Meanwhile, a reference patent document 2 (i.e., Laid-Open Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-267943) has put forth a microscope image pickup apparatus recording the image pickup data of an electronic camera mounted onto a microscope together with a photographing condition related to the photographing, thereby enabling a reproduction of the state at the time of the photographing by reading the image pickup data.